Or is President F.W. de Klerk, with his strategy for maintaining white power, now part of the problem?

If South Africa slips deeper into conflict, it might be traced to a morning in June when President F.W. de Klerk attempted to visit Boipatong, scene of the most recent township massacre. Until then he was often greeted in black communities by chants of "Viva comrade De Klerk!" But in Boipatong angry young men blocked his way and called him a murderer. De Klerk fled in the presidential BMW, consternation written on his face.

What has become of the great white hope -- the man who saw the writing on the wall, dismantled the bars of apartheid and promised to shape...